The chiptune music scene is largely rooted in the sounds of the original Nintendo Game Boy and the Commodore 64, while still welcoming a wide range of other hardware under its general umbrella. Still, few chip musicians show up to a gig hauling a PDP-1. That’s perhaps a shame, given that the 1950s era machine can produce beautiful music—as demonstrated by [Peter Samson] and [Joe Lynch].
The video demonstration was recorded at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. [Peter Samson] is operating the PDP-1, which is running the Harmony Compiler—which allows the machine to play four individual voices. This is achieved by taking advantage of the PDP-1’s program flags, which are visible as six light bulbs on the control panel. Instructions can be used to turn these bulbs on and off. The Harmony Compiler works by switching the bulbs on and off fast enough to create audible square waves when the light bulb outputs are wired to a simple audio amplifier.
Using Harmony Compiler, [Joe] and [Peter] worked together to transcribe the song Olson by Boards of Canada to play on the PDP-1. The song is encoded on paper tape, and fed into the machine—which dutifully plays back the hauntingly beautiful melody.
If you’re interested in the code that achieved this, it’s blessedly available via Github. If you love stories about old computers playing music, we’ve got those too. Video after the break.
It is easy to write off Tinkercad as a kid’s toy. It is easy enough for kids to learn and it uses bright colors looking more like a video game than a CAD tool. We use a variety of CAD tools, but for something quick, sometimes Tinkercad is just the ticket. Earlier this year, Tinkercad got a sketch feature, something many other CAD programs have and, now, you can even revolve the sketch to form complex objects. Tinkercad guru [HL ModTech] shows you how in the video below.
It wasn’t long ago that we needed to cut an irregular shape out of an STL and we found the sketch feature which was perfect for that purpose. If you’ve used other CAD tools, you’ll know that sketches are typically 2D shapes that get changed into a 3D shape. The traditional thing is to simply extrude it, so if you draw a circle in 2D, you get a cylinder.
Over on YouTube, [The Modern Rogue] created an interesting video showing a slide-rule-like encryption device called the Réglette. This was a hardware implementation of a Vigenère-like Cipher, technically referred to as a manual polyalphabetic substitution cipher. The device requires no batteries, is fully waterproof, daylight readable and easy to pack, making it really useful if you find yourself in a muddy trench in the middle of winter during a world war. Obviously, because it’s a slide rule.
Anyway, so how does this cipher work? Well, the ‘polyalphabetic’ bit infers the need for a key phrase, which is indeed the first thing all parties need to agree upon. Secondly, a number is required as a reference point. As you can see from the video, the sliding part of the device has letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers and a special symbol. The body has two series of numbers, with the same spacing as the central, sliding part. A second copy of the sliding part is also needed to slide in behind the first unit. This second copy is neatly stowed below the body during storage.
With each message letter, you lookup the corresponding cipher text number, then shift the slider to the next key phrase letter.
The cipher works by first aligning the starting letter of the (variable-length) key phrase with the reference number. Next, encode the first symbol from the cleartext message (the thing you want to encrypt). You simply look up the letter on the slide and read off either of the numbers next to it. Randomly selecting the left or right set adds an extra bit of strength to the code due to increased entropy. The number is the first symbol for your ciphertext (the thing you want to transmit to the receiver). Next, you move on to the next symbol in the cleartext message. Align the following letter of the key phrase with the reference number, look up the corresponding letter in the message, and transmit the following number onwards. When you run out of key phrase letters, you loop back to the start, and the cycle repeats.
The special symbol we mentioned earlier is not really a ‘blank’; it is a control symbol used to retransmit a new reference number with the existing setup. To change the reference number, the blank character is encoded and sent, followed by the latest reference number. When the blank symbol is received at the other end, the following code is used as the reference number, and the key phrase position is reset to point back to the first letter, restarting the cycle anew. Simple, yes. Effective? Well, not really by modern standards, but at the time of limited computing power (i.e. pen and paper, perhaps a mechanical calculator at best), it would have been sufficient for some uses for a couple of decades.
Why is this Vigenère-like? Well, an actual Vigenère cipher maps letters to other letters, but the Réglette uses numbers, randomly selected, adding entropy, as well as the control code to allow changing the cypher parameter mid-message. This makes it harder to attack; the original Vigenère was considered first-rate cryptography for centuries.
If you’d like to play along at home and learn some other simple ciphers, check this out. Kings and Queens of old frequently used cryptography, including the famous Queen Mary of Scots. Of course, we simply can’t close out an article on cryptography without mentioning the Enigma machine. Here’s one built out of Meccano!
The Razer Nari is a decent wireless headset, but it’s a little oddball—because it uses a bespoke USB dongle for pairing. This is all well and good if you’re using a supported configuration; plug it into a Windows PC, run the utility, and you’re good to go. If you’re a Linux user, though, you were out of luck—but [JJ] has just solved that problem.
The tool was created by reverse engineering the pairing protocol used by Razer’s own proprietary software. [JJ] figured out the necessary pairing command, and how to send it to both the dongle and the headset. The headset itself must be connected by a USB cable when initiating the pairing process.
[JJ] believes the tool should work with any Razer Nari and dongle variant. However, the Nari Ultimate and Nari Essential models are yet to be tested, with verification still required. However, the pairing commands were extracted from Razer’s own tool and don’t appear to differ so it should probably work across the board. Setup is still a little fussy, particularly to get both the Game Audio and Chat Audio outputs working under Linux. However, [JJ] has helpfully provided the necessary detail to get everything up and running with PulseAudio and PipeWire setups.
Key to the build is the 3D printed enclosure, which faithfully mimics the look of the in-game item. By virtue of Minecraft’s simplistic visual style, it’s a relatively straightforward print, without a lot of quirky geometry or difficult overhangs that might otherwise trip up your printer. It’s printed in six parts and assembled with acrylic lenses which act to diffuse the light coming from inside.
Electronically, an Arduino Nano runs the show. It’s hooked up to a pair of NeoPixel addressable LED rings, which provide rich RGB colors on demand. Rotary pots are installed on the enclosure to enable the color to be tuned to the user’s desire. Power is courtesy of an 18650 lithium-ion cell and a TP4056 module ensures the battery is kept happy when charging.
It’s a fun prop build, and one that would be the perfect addition to any Minecraft costume. Except for maybe a chicken jockey, because they don’t use lanterns. In any case, we’ve seen similar work before, too.
So much news, so little time left until Supercon! We hope you all have your tickets. If not: Workshop and general admission tickets are on sale now. We’re getting down to the last slightly-more-than-two-handfuls, so if you’re thinking of coming, the time for procrastination has passed.
First up, we have two late-addition workshops, and tickets were just made available. Maybe you noticed that Arduino was bought by Qualcomm, and they kicked off the union with a brand-new board? You can get yourself one, and learn how to use it. And not to be outdone, the CEO of Framework, makers of modular laptop computers, is coming with a grab-bag of parts for you to play with.
Leonardo Cavagnis & Tyler Wojciechowicz
Arduino x DigiKey Presents – From Blink to Think: Discover Arduino Uno Q
Explore the power of Arduino Uno Q, the new board combining a microcontroller and a microprocessor. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to get started with Uno Q and unlock its dual-core capabilities for intelligent and connected projects.
Nirav Patel Framework Mystery Boxes: Swap & Build
This workshop is hosted by Framework’s Founder and CEO, Nirav Patel. You’ll receive a box of assorted returned/refurbished Framework Laptop parts at the start of the workshop. You can then trade parts with other attendees and work together to try to build a functioning computer of some kind. You’ll pick up some tips and tricks on debugging and repair along the way.
The first generation of real-time train information screens for British railways came in the form of suspended color CRTs in familiar rounded fiberglass housings. They were a ubiquitous sight across the network for years, until of course suddenly, they weren’t. Can they be brought back? [Heliomass] has come about as close as it’s possible to be, with a modern emulation that runs from live data feeds.
The screens were recognizably using the same graphics standards as Teletext, and thus it was no surprise back in the day to see from time to time an Acorn boot screen in a railway station.
We remember some debate at the time as to whether they were running Archimedes of BBC Micro hardware behind the scenes, though it seems likely it might have been the industrial BBC Micro derivative.
The modern recreation uses an emulated BBC Micro for the signage, with a serial connection to a server component running in Python on more modern hardware. This handles grabbing the data and sending it to the Beeb for display. The result is an unexpected bit of nostalgia for anyone who spent the 1980s or ’90s in south east England.
